Day 46
Field day. 2019.
For 11 years one or more of my kids have attended our neighborhood public elementary school. One year — one miraculous year — all three of them were there. This year my youngest is in fifth grade, about to be launched out of elementary school into middle school.
For 11 years we have been a part of this community of families, teachers, staff. I was involved with the PTO for many years. I have chaperoned field trips, attended countless community meetings, attended concerts and plays, organized fundraisers. I have signed in at the office, volunteered for field days, attended state fairs, walked through the halls decorated with art projects and brightly decorated bulletin boards. The school is cheerful and has served all of my children in ways far beyond curriculum. It has been a community, and we have been marking each last moment since this school year began in September.
In October, during parent conferences, one of the teachers in the school — one who never served as a classroom teacher for my kids but who knows our family after more than a decade — recognized that this was our last time sitting across one of those round tables on small chairs, reviewing work and talking about a child’s learning. I laughed when he called out from his classroom, “Last time!” Yes, I said, so many “lasts” to acknowledge. They are bittersweet, I responded, but I told him I was aware of each as it was happening. By then we all had attended our last fall picnic, our last Halloween parade, our last open house. And there were so many more lasts to come.
We were coming up on all of the end-of-year celebrations and looking forward to all of the fifth-grade traditions: the play, the spaghetti supper fundraiser, the field trip to Sturbridge Village, graduation. And the last science fair — the one where the kids who have done a project every year are recognized and given a ribbon. My daughter was looking forward to that ribbon.
Yesterday my fifth grader came on my walk with me.
As we walked, we chatted about baseball season being cancelled. About whether there would be “regular” school in the fall. And how it would be to be in middle school, changing classes. She’ll be entering just as her sister is leaving, similarly finished with a school without the culminating celebrations and rituals of being the oldest in the highest grade. No final band concert. No last day of service. No trip to Quebec with French class. No more opportunities to bemoan middle school together with friends.
Next year I will have two kids entering new schools. I hope. Or maybe they will be entering new grades from home.
Every day is full of small or large adjustments to our new normal. How will the fifth graders be recognized? Will they? Will the kids get to see their teachers again? There are so many questions I can’t even articulate them fast enough. They flood my brain. How will we move forward without saying goodbye to the fourth-grade teacher that connected with each of our very different children in ways that changed them all?
I told the kids, the last morning they went to school — Friday, the 13th of March — to empty out their lockers, bring everything home that they’d need. I told them that if school wasn’t cancelled, they were staying home anyway. That we’d keep them home that next Monday.
School was cancelled. At first for a few weeks. Then for a few more. Now, for the rest of the year.
My middle daughter left her gym clothes in her locker. I’m sure that’s the least offensive item left behind. All hail the custodial staff of a middle school abandoned mid-year.
When I asked my youngest what she had left in her locker and her desk she said, “A notebook. A 30-pack of colored pencils.”
Yesterday, total U.S. cases exceeded 1 million. Massachusetts General Hospital and partners released a “COVID-19 simulator” that can predict cases and deaths based on the measures — or lack thereof — that states take to mitigate the virus. I have looked at so many graphs in the past seven weeks I feel like an amateur statistician.
Other notifications on my phone yesterday: VP Mike Pence visited the Mayo Clinic and did not wear a face mask. President Trump signed an executive order to keep meat processing plants open, despite the fact that they have become hot spots, with workers sick and in many cases, dying. Hillary Clinton endorsed Joe Biden. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we are in a presidential election year; that prior to all of this I was closely following the election, watching every debate while rapid-fire texting with Sarah through each one.
We don’t need to go back for the notebook and the colored pencils. But I’d like to go back and see the elementary school, thank the teachers, have one last walk through the halls as a parent of a student who has run up and down the hallways, slammed lockers, gone to PE and music, library and art classes, made friends, learned a little about growing up. I am left feeling a gap where the closure is supposed to be. I thought I was ready for the lasts, and then they all came at once, marked only by uncertainty.
Stay safe, everyone.